Tag Archives: The bar

PUPILLAGE: ‘A REASONABLE EXPECTATION’

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OccupyTheInns hits back at the criticism last week's post received, and puts forward some ideas to reform the pupillage system

In the summer of 2000 I was fortunate enough to visit New York with my family. One of the best moments of that trip was looking down at the city from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Just over a year later those towers had been destroyed. At first I was shocked and angry with the senseless terrorists who had committed this atrocity. But as the US invaded Afghanistan in retaliation, then Iraq, and opened up the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba to hold detainees from those wars, my views began to change.

Why were the detainees being held without trial? Why were they not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Convention? Amongst all the lawlessness shown by the Bush administration I learnt for the first time about the rule of law, and how necessary it was to civilised society.

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BOOZERS: THEIR BRILLIANCE AND BAD BEHAVIOUR

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Writing anonymously, a partner at a top London law firm reflects on the legal profession's relationship with alcohol

Suffice to say the interaction between lawyers and alcohol has long been a topic of humour, and concern.  One of my two favourite lawyers in literature, Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, is of course a brilliant lawyer and an alcoholic who sacrifices his life to the guillotine to save the husband of the woman he loves (the love being unrequited).

John Mortimer's barrister caricature, Horace Rumpole, always finishes his daily grind with a bottle of Chateau Thames Embankment at Pomeroy's Wine Bar, a loose disguise for El Vino. I haven’t been there for a while but certainly 25 years ago the customers were almost all either barristers or journalists, when ‘Fleet Street’ was actually still situated in Fleet Street.

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SOCIAL MOBILITY EFFORTS STILL IN A VACUUM

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The disconnect between the legal profession and school children is a hindrance to diversity, argues Adam Fellows

Earlier this year, I spent a day going from school to school in Cambridge giving talks to children about protecting their personal information online. Considering I know I wouldn't make a good teacher, I really enjoyed doing my bit on ‘Data Protection Day’, and would thoroughly recommend that type of pro bono work to other aspiring lawyers as ‘Data Protection Day’ 2012 approaches. I found talking about the law to other people and explaining the intricacies of it really helped to solidify my own understanding.

As part of the talk I gave, I asked if anyone had any questions about the law as a career, and specifically the Bar. I wasn't quite expecting the reactions I received.

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#RoundMyKitchenTable: BAR DELEGATION VISITS DALSTON

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Jeremy Hopkins, a practice manager at top commercial set 3 Verulam Buildings, and Benjamin Gray, a pupil barrister specialising in employment law at another London chambers, make the difficult journey from central London to Legal Cheek's Hackney recording studios (AKA podcast host Alex Aldridge's flat).

There, having plied Jez and Ben with cheap red wine, Alex asks a series of wonderfully incisive questions, unearthing the truth about what it means to work at that most venerable of British institutions, the Bar.

How did Ben net a pupillage? How did Jez get into clerking? What's their advice to legal wannabes?

Sit back, crack open a Friday lunchtime can of lager, and find out. (Or listen later on iTunes)

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